The Impossible When we decided to go see a movie about a family ripped apart by 2004's disastrous tsunami in Thailand and then brought back together by love and perseverance, we pretty much expected a mom movie that really milks its sob factor. While we definitely shed a few tears by the end of it, the movie had a lot more going for it than sappy family drama.

We just want Naomi Watts to stop getting hurt!

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While she didn't snag a Golden Globe for it, the best part of The Impossible was Naomi Watts' performance as Maria, the mother of three young boys and wife of Ewan McGregor's Henry who struggles through the whole movie and somehow ends up reunited with her family. She made every flesh ripped, dragged through ruins, screamed at the top of her lungs, infected and rotted leg moment of her performance disturbingly realistic.

Another surprisingly realistic part of this movie were the actual tsunami scenes--the large crushing waves destroying beachside resorts, the rushing torrent nearly pulling everything including the family out to sea and the chaos under water after each wave hits. Anyone who's taunted the waves on vacation knows the feeling of how waves can knock you down, flip you around and take you away. The Impossible captures and magnifies that sensation perfectly.

After all of that anguish, panic and destruction, we were ready for a nice relaxing meal.

Our massaman curry was full of huge chunks of tasty roasted duck.

Heather Hoch

My Mom's Thai Kitchen Culinarily speaking, Phoenicians have lots of options to taste Thailand, without splurging to go there. While we have our favorites, it's always nice to try a new one and My Mom's opened right downtown only a few months ago.

We started with some crunchy fried spring rolls and po tak soup with veggies. The fried spring rolls were pretty standard, though they had corn in them, which we haven't seen before. The po tak was super tasty, with sour, spicy broth that was so flavorful we wished it could be used everywhere. Oddly, we found a piece of chicken in our supposedly all veggie soup--bad news for vegetarians and an unexpected surprise for anyone else.

Heather Hoch

For our main course, we opted for massaman curry with duck. This classic Thai meets Persia curry features potatoes, carrots and peanuts. The super nutty and slightly sweetly spiced dish complimented the beautifully roasted duck in the curry. The delightfully gamey foul is easily the number one reason to stop by My Mom's, though we weren't that swept away (...sorry) by anything else we ordered.